**This Family has started their own blog about their situation. You can follow the story here.**

One of our families who adopted 2 foster boys last February, just found out that the appeals court overturned the biological mom’s termination. That means that unless there is a major intervention these two beautiful boys may be pulled from the only stable and loving home they have ever known to be placed back in a situation in which their safety has been continually threatened. After three years with their current parents who have promised to love and care for them always, no matter what, if these boys are moved the damage to their ability to trust a parent ever again will be greatly compromised. PLEASE pray that God will move mountains.

For those who are interested in helping this family out in more ways, we are raising money for the major legal battle that is about to ensue. This type of case is unprecedented as no one in the Department of Social and Health Services has seen parental rights be restored after an adoption has already taken place. If you would like to be a part of this preserving this family, please consider donating to our family preservation fund. 100 percent of every dollar raised will go directly to paying the legal fees to keep these boys in a safe home where they can continue to heal from their past abuse and neglect. All money raised in excess of any fees necessary to do so will remain in the family preservation fund to help other children facing these types of situations.

Forever Homes is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and all gifts are tax-deductible. ]]> http://foreverhomes.org/2010/10/01/family-preservation-fund/feed/ 0 http://foreverhomes.org/2009/07/22/the-o-word/ http://foreverhomes.org/2009/07/22/the-o-word/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:18:35 +0000 Lynn Owens http://my.foreverhomes.org/?p=289 File this post under “my two cents.” Children in North America who have no parents are commonly referred to as “foster children.” Children from overseas, especially developing countries are called “orphans.” Why is that? They are orphaned for the same reasons reasons in Africa, Asia and the USA. Violence, drugs, and disease are orphan makers in New Deli and New York.

I ask because I am faced with the difference on a regular basis. The work we do at Forever Homes is all about helping parentless kids, and I find myself having to use the very verbose “foster children waiting for adoption and orphans from around the world” when I am really referring to the same thing. If I talk about our work to help orphans find forever homes it implies that I am speaking about the good people doing international adoption. While this annoying the prespective of trying to be succinct and pithy, it bothers me on a much deeper level.

I beleive we have tried to sanitize our civilized nations of orphans. We closed the orphanages and put the healthiest of the kids in foster homes. The more difficult children and sibiling groups live in group homes. We have reserved residential treatment facilities and hospitals for the most difficult kids. Ask me what the difference is between an orphanage and a group home or residential treatment facility. Maybe I should ask you, because I have worked in both and I don’t know. Group care facilites are often more spread out and divided into “cottages” rather than large institution-like buildings, but the numbers of kids haven’t changed, nor has the fact that they don’t have parents. I am not disparaging group homes and RTC’s, there are many great facilities with wonderful and caring staff. My only point is that we stopped calling them orphanages the same way we stopped calling their residents orphans.

Problem is when we expunged the “o” word from our language, I think it gave us a false sense of security. I think we feel good about ourselves for having solved the orphan problem when all we did was move them around, sprinkle some fairy dust, and changed the vocabulary.

We are a nation with orphans and I for one am choosing to include the word in my repertoire. We can’t let America’s orphans slip into obscurity when they so  badly need us to remember them.

Archibald’s Incorporated became the first official sponsor of the “Not Forsaken Campaign.” The Archibald name is synonymous with the highest levels of ethical business practices resulting in unparalleled levels of customer satisfaction since 1981. They were named the fastest growing small business in Washington state and 7th fastest growing in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine. In addition to their outstanding reputation in the Tri-Cities as a dealer of high-end pre-owned vehicles they will go down in history as the first business sponsor of Forever Homes.

All of us here at Forever Homes appreciate the faith that Archibald’s has placed in our ability to help hurting kids. All money received from the “Not Forsaken Campaign” will go to serve children stuck in foster care and orphans from around the world.

1.    Don’t offer unsolicited advice. You were a wonderful parent. However, adopting an older/special needs child is different. The child acts different around the adoptive parents than they do around anyone else. You probably think advice will help, but when you offer advice all the parent really hears is, “You aren’t very good at this.” If the parents feel their decisions are being scrutinized, it creates an added pressure. Instead of thinking about what would be best for the child in a given situation, they’ll be wondering how others are going to judge them. If you really want to help, see 6 & 7 below.

2.    Remember, it really is NOT the same as raising your own children. The child/children being adopted are seriously wounded. The parents have no bond with the child on which to rely for motivation. In fact, experts agree that TRADITIONAL PARENTING TECHNIQUES DO NOT WORK with kids with attachment issues. I know all parenting is tough, but for a while it will be harder, more tiring, and more challenging than raising a child that has been with you since birth.

3.    Please do NOT nurture, mentor, hug, kiss, or give sweets to the child. The kids have been looking to have this need fulfilled by every adult they have come into contact with since they began to be abused/neglected. Now they have parents, and to facilitate this bond, all of the aforementioned activities need to be done solely by the new parents until a secure bond has taken place.

4.    Don’t be manipulated by the child. After the honeymoon period, children are likely to make up stories about their new parents. Don’t believe them. In fact, in many cases, you are best to believe that everything coming from the child mouth is a lie. In many cases the kids are still shopping for parents. As they get closer to their parents, they may try to sabotage the relationship.

5.    Please DO encourage the parent(s) regularly. They will need it.

6.    Please DO be creative with how to help. Hey, these parents are exhausted because of constant testing by the kids and trying to learn how this child is wired up. It is work that only they can do. But there are plenty of things you can do to free up time for them to focus on the kids. Clean their house, mow their lawn, drop off a frozen meal, offer to watch the kids for a couple hours so they can take a break, fix the car, go grocery shopping, etc.

7.    Make it your goal to help the parents, not help the kids. These kids have had counselors, teachers, therapists, case managers, foster parents and more helping them through some pretty tough times. The one thing that has been missing is permanent people who have committed to them for the rest of their lives. The most important relationship now is the parent child relationship, and the kids need to begin to understand that this “Parent Person” is who takes care of me now. Remember, help the parents, so they can help the kids.”

So what does this mean to our donors and families? First, donors gifts dating back to August of 2006 are, in fact, tax-deductible, as are all gifts, bequests, and devises from this point on. Second our families can count on increased level of support as we are now able to launch publicly, begin public fund raising, and seek grant money for programs to help abused and neglected kids find permanent safe and loving homes.

Since this is such a momentous occasion, I thought I’d take a quick trip down memory lane and take a peek into the future of Forever Homes.

Our History

In December of 2005 Jennie and I felt the unmistakable call to help foster children and orphans. We obeyed God’s call on our lives and searched the country for organizations doing this kind of work. In February 2006 we moved from Wisconsin to Florida to help open an emergency shelter for boys in sunny Palm Beach County.

During our time there we came to realize that although keeping kids housed was much preferable to letting them run the streets or stay in abusive homes, that it was not the final answer. We continued our search for organizations that were helping find these kids permanent homes, but it seemed that for just about everyone, adoption was the end of the process. We felt that adoption was just the beginning of the process of helping these kids heal. It seemed, however, that since state and federal money stopped with adoption, so did the assistance to the children who were adopted. Furthermore, we discovered that 120,000 kids were waiting each year to be adopted (that is the U.S. number – the world wide number is more than 3 million.)

We caught a vision to make sure that every child had a family by breaking down the barriers to adoption. That meant we were going to have to become experts at foster care and adoption and the problems associated with the transition to adoptive homes. We left the group home we were serving in and moved to Washington where we began the hard work. Over the next 4 months Jennie and I read every article published during the previous 10 years relating to foster care, adoption, and attachment issues. We studied what other organizations had done, what the government was doing, and focused on understanding the shortcomings of our system and how we can fill the holes.

The fruit of our labor was Forever Homes. We incorporated in August of 2006 and began working on implementing the vision. First, though, we would do something practical and tangible about the problem. We adopted 3 children from foster care and spent the next year focusing on them while Forever Homes simmered on the back burner.

In March of 2007 we started the first support group for families of foster and adopted children in our area. It was hugely successful. In June of 2008 we finished filling positions on our board of directors and submitted our research and vision to the IRS for their stamp of approval. This week we got it.

Before our public launch, which is scheduled for May 15, 2009, we provided more than 800 hours of volunteer labor to about a dozen families, started the support group and conducted training for extended support networks – all with only volunteer staff.

The Future

The need is great and the work is abundant, so we hope to hire our first full time staff this year. We’ll begin a public campaign for funding at our kick off concert on May 15 hoping to raise enough to hire the staff to help make this vision a reality, to provide desperately needed support for the families, and to chip away at the three million kids waiting for adoption.

Join us in for a concert at South Hills Church on Friday May 15th at 7pm for as we rally together to proclaim that the 120,000 children waiting for adoption in the United States and the 5 millions orphans around the world are not forgotten, not abandoned and NOT FORSAKEN.

Christian Music artists Shawn McDonald and Meredith Andrews will be on hand to lead in worship and inspiration. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. You can buy them online here, or pick them up at South Hills Church or Parable Bookstore. Doors open at 6:30

I ran across this article on attachment.org that really explains this concept.

When parents push or interrupt around the issue homework and responsibility, the oppositional child will push back, and what they push away is the knowledge they have to have to succeed in life. As push comes against shove in the homework battle the parent/child relationship can be destroyed. I’ve had parents describe to me, sitting at the table, four to five hours nightly, as a child cries and argues and fusses, and whines over each page. I asked one incredibly dedicated father, after he asked me the solution to his nightly homework battle with his son, how his son’s grades were, he replied, “He’s failing!”. Parents push, the children fail. read the whole article

Support Group

In March we started the Forever Homes support group and in 9 months it has grown into a wonderful, active and nurturing group. We weren’t sure if anyone would show up, but we knew that no one else was providing this kind of support for adoptive families. We handed out some flyers and made some phone calls and had 5 families our first night. We have met every fourth Monday night since then and our network has grown to about a dozen families supporting and caring for one another. More than that, this group of strangers has become great friends and allies in helping their hurting children heal. We had a memorial day picnic together, a weekend camping trip, and a Christmas party. Our mom’s have kept Starbucks and Smoovies in business  through their impromptu meetings.

Volunteering

Volunteers provided more than 800 man hours  of service to adoptive families this year. Concerned individuals provided meals, yard work, home construction, and respite care to families assimilating abused and neglected children into their homes.

Adoptions

Three families in our support network finalized the adoptions of their foster children in 2008.  Adoption day’s are a major celebration in the lives of our kids, as it is a major step in helping them realize that these families are theirs forever. Eight foster kids were also placed within the network of Forever Homes families with the anticipation that they will be adopted in the near future.

Racing Limos

One of my favorite moments of the year was when I was contacted by Racing Limos of the Tri-Cities. They wanted to provide a date night outing for one of our adoptive couples. We decided to have a “best story” contest at our support group to decide who would receive the gift, and our group chose to give it to Dana, a single mom who was finalizing the adoption of her daughter that same week. Dana chose to use the limo ride to transport her and her new daughter to the courthouse for the adoption. NBC news even showed up to cover the story, but was unable to air it because of some confidentiality and safety concerns. Regardless, Dana, her daughter and friends and family that got to ride in the limo loved arriving in style. It was an amazing addition to a life-changing day.

The Perfect Move Magazine

The word is out about our new little non-profit, and we were approached by a local magazine who wanted to feature us in their local section. You can read the article here.

The IRS

After more than a year of writing our application for 501(c)(3) and waiting for it to get in front of a live person, we have finally been in contact with our assigned agent. We expect to receive approval any day now.

Challenges of 2009

We are off to a great start and I am very excited about some of the opportunities we are pursuing in 2009.

We are overwhelmed with all there is to do, and as an all volunteer organization we have realized that in order to proceed we will need full time staff. Parents are regularly crying out for help and we want to help make their placements and adoptions successful. To that end we are currently recruiting and training respite staff who will come into homes to provide help as needed. We are also helping families identify and train support networks.

There are about 80 adoptions from foster care finalized in our area every year, so we have just scratched the surface for the type of support we’d like to offer. We’ll need more resources and manpower to help all those families and we hope to hire an Executive Director to lead these efforts early in 2009.

A recent law passed in the Washington State legislature, allowing foster families to camp in State Parks for free, was the only excuse the families at Forever Homes needed to plan the First Annual Forever Homes Camping Trip.

Families with a mixture of foster, adopted and biological children met on July 19th at Lewis and Clark Trail State Park for an afternoon of tubing down the Touchet River and other water fun. That evening the kids cooked over the fire, roasted s’mores, told campfire stories and sang songs before heading to their tents.

The parents of Forever Homes families work to provide many positive family experiences that kids from broken homes don’t generally get to experience.

For more pictures from the camping trip check out our flickr page. (Faces of some children have been blurred to protect their identity – Forever Homes parents can e-mailThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it us to request unedited versions)